As U.S. newspapers scramble to cut costs in the face of falling advertising, a handful have announced plans to outsource copyediting and page layout to editorial services firms in India.

This has sparked a tremendous debate within the newspaper business. While one side argues that there’s no way something as connected to local language, geography, history and cultural knowledge can be handled from half a world away, the other side maintains that companies have successfully outsourced all types of business operations to India, there’s no reason newspapers can’t do the same by using highly competent Indian business partners, and people who think otherwise are being xenophobic.

In his weekly column on Poynter Online, noted Poynter writing coach Roy Peter Clark puts himself squarely in the anti-outsourcing camp. In the column, From Rim Editor to Ram the Editor, St. Petersburg, Florida, based Clark claims that while Indian editors may be very good at what they do, copy editors need to be part of the local fabric of the community to do their jobs well. He writes:

I need copy editors to know that Eva Longoria is not the wife of Tampa Bay Rays baseball phenom Evan Longoria. I need them to know that a Florida cracker is not something you eat, and that it may or may not be offensive to some readers. I need a Rhode Island copy editor to know that you don’t dig for clams; you dig for quahogs, a word of Indian origin — American Indian. I need copy editors who know that Jim Morrison of The Doors went to St. Pete Junior College, that beat writer Jack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Fla., but is buried in Lowell, Mass. I want them to know that Lakewood High School is different from Lakewood Ranch High School. I want them to know that 54th Avenue North in St. Petersburg is 108 blocks north of 54th Avenue South.

Clark’s column is based in part on a recent interview he did on a radio show called The Takeaway on WNYC in New York City with hosts John Hockenberry and Adaora Udoji. Listen to the entire broadcast here.

The problem with outsourcing has been pointed out so well…the folks on the other side of the earth don’t fully understand the cultural differences that can make such a big difference to the tone & accuracy of the story.

No matter how well educated and well trained Indian copy editors are, they cannot acquire the lifetime of knowledge specific to this culture in a matter of days or weeks or months. I wouldn’t try to edit anything for an Indian publication; they shouldn’t try to edit for US papers. Only an idiot driven by bottom-line considerations only would think these are swappable skills. It may be that tech matters can be sent overseas–and I don’t say that they should be–but the essence of what we do requires familiarity with our language and culture. Hell, I’ve worked with a couple of Australians based in the US who struggled to adapt their sense of language to American papers. How is someone in India, not even here, going to pick it up?

[…] New York Times’ Maureen Dowd uses the paper’s Op-Ed pages to ruminate on the trend of outsourcing newspaper work to India. Dowd interviews James Macpherson, publisher of Pasadena Now, an online only news site, who fired […]

This debate is absolutely a fair one – from the viewpoint of best-fit workforce for a given job-type. [Let us leave out the state of economy, the situation with job opportunities, etc. If there are jobs that can utilize local talent, and fellow unemployed citizens who can do the job at costs that an entity can addord are available as well, then it might be responsible/patriotic to offer such jobs to local job-seekers.]

News stories that rely on a copy-editor’s familiarity with local geography, culture and history – recent or past – would obviously be treated well by an American editor. International stories, especially the Asian ones, stories on science, technology or academics might be expected to be done satisfactorily by an Indian copy editor as well.

I quite liked one of the comments above that poses the question of suitability of an American copy editor to edit a typically Indian news story!

I tend to agree with Paula and Ganesh comments above. I have worked with Cosmic Strands, a niche publishing services company based in Bangalore, India who provide copy editing services for academic and profesional publishing. I know first-hand how much effort an Indian copy editor must make, what sort of training program they must go through before they appreciate all nuances of copy editing artcles authored by other people – native (informal usage) or non-native alike, although the latter may pose great challenge for any copy editor. However, in areas where good substantive understanding is helpful and one understands the basic dynamics of the language, an Indian copy editor might do as well. It is I think informal writing styles of native authors where in general a typical Indian editor is likely to face grave challenges.

“No matter how well educated and well trained American copy editors are, they cannot acquire the lifetime of knowledge specific to Indian culture in a matter of days or weeks or months. I wouldn’t try to edit anything for an American publication; they shouldn’t try to edit for Indian papers. Only an idiot driven by bottom-line considerations only would think these are swappable skills. It may be that tech matters can be sent overseas–and I don’t say that they should be–but the essence of what we do requires familiarity with our language and culture. Hell, I’ve worked with a couple of Australians based in India who struggled to adapt their sense of language to Indian papers. How is someone in America, not even here, going to pick it up?”

Hold it! Sounds very familiar – in particular if you have already read the responses above? No plagiarism intended folks! I have just swapped India and Indian(s) with America and American(s) respectively, and suddenly I derived Paula Berinstein’s perspective out of Pam’s (both above). Interestingly, Ritu Uttamchandani’s point of view became prudent for me. The whole question concerns best-fit for a given job, and outsourcing is never done (should never be done!) to a person/location that doesn’t meet one’s overall criteria: generally low cost with quality and timeframes intact! Let’s either develop the best resources in America (India) and get everything done in America (India) or outsource when needed as long as the action is compatible with the constraints of our times….

An interesting and relevant discussion. As an Indian copy editor, I agree that cultural differences can be a challenge for some aspiring editors, but I also think that acquiring the relevant knowledge to copyedit culturally different material is a matter of exposure, time, practice, and experience. With the Internet and television, bringing American — or Western — culture closer to an Indian audience is easier and possible today, and the nuances of a different culture and language can be learned if one has some aptitude and good language skills. Indian copy editors must work hard, but what drives the best ones is, I believe, a love of language, and that is one passion that is shared by good copy editors regardless of cultural origins.

I don’t think the experiment will last much longer than the one month quoted! At the most for page layouts, but certainly not copy. A newspaper is the heart of a community: no amount of knowing styles of English teaches you a community, its ways of living, its slang; you have to grow up in families, Internet at least now doesn’t help you there. Maybe in fifty years’ time we would be having corpora which may make this possible, but that homogenized and boring a world is still far away, and merci beaucoup!

As far as the questions of selectivity go, the local newspapers don’t run on Asian and international stories: they anyway take syndicated stories and pictures for such extra fillings. The slabs of meat are the local gossip, sports, and community concerns. As long as one is outsourcing books to India it’s fine, because there you deal with academic English plus you are publishing something only libraries buy (since anyway fiction won’t go to India, anyway not much retail, mostly just trade), so you are keen on maximizing returns. Newspapers? Besides being left agape at the insolence of any Indian agency that thinks it should even do it, forget the can do it, I am left laughing red at such an experiment even thought of by someone!